Bumped from the Diaries. - CC

According to the Des Moines Register and Iowa State the NCAA Amateurism Certification program has ruled that freshman guard Lucca Staiger has been ruled ineligible for this year.  This is the maximum penalty the NCAA can dole out.  So what violation could possibly be severe enough to warrant that punishment?

He played on a team that paid two players.

Yes, that's it.  He played on a team that paid two players.  And he wasn't one of them.  The team he played on was considered to be a non-professional team by all of the German leagues they played in but apparently these two players received some sort of compensation over the NCAA's limit so an innocent player gets screwed.

This joins another in a long line of completely absurd rulings by the NCAA.  There are almost too many to recount but in the end it seems like the kids that try to do things the right way will get screwed if they slip up once and get a plane ticket to go to their grandma's funeral while they look the other way when Reggie Bush's family is living in a house they didn't pay for.

I had hoped that the NCAA had injected some common sense into their recent rulings in cases like Alvin Bowen raising his brother but it's clear that it's business as usual in Indianapolis.  You can get away with pretty much whatever you want and only receive a slap on the wrist as long as you're bringing in the big bucks but schools like Washington State and Iowa State, and especially guys like Lucca, will get screwed in the end.